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Kellan’s struggles lessened, but he kept trying to get another look around Brock. Kept trying to see what it was they were hiding from him inside the shot-up sedan on the street.

“Come and wait over here with me,” Kade said as he moved in and corralled the youth, draping his arm around the thin shoulders as he guided the boy farther up the curb, away from the bloodshed at the other end of the street.

After Kellan was safely out of earshot, Mathias Rowan muttered a quiet curse. “I had no idea that Freyne or the others with him were corrupt, I swear it. My God, I can’t believe what happened here tonight. All of my men, Christophe Archer … all dead.” He grabbed for his cell phone. “I have to call this in.”

Before he could touch the first key, Tegan clamped his hand around the Agent’s wrist and gave a sober shake of his head. “I need you to keep this as quiet as you can. Can you delay your report while the Order looks deeper into the abduction and the ambush?”

Rowan inclined his head in agreement. “I can delay it for a few hours, but anything more could prove difficult. Some of these Agents had families. There will be questions.”

“Understood,” Tegan replied. His grasp on the Agent’s wrist didn’t let up, and Brock knew the Gen One’s talent for reading a person with a touch would tell him if Rowan was truly an ally to the Order or not. After a moment, Tegan gave a faint nod. “I know you’ve been Chase’s contact on the inside of the Agency for a while now, Mathias. The Order greatly appreciates your help. But no one is to be trusted now, not even your best Agents.”

Mathias Rowan inclined his head in agreement, his gaze solemn as he took in the destruction then glanced back to Tegan and Brock. “If this is an example of what Dragos is capable of, then he is my enemy, too. Tell me what the Order needs, and I will do whatever I can to help you bring this son of a bitch down.”

“Right now, we need time and silence,” Tegan replied. “I don’t believe Dragos is finished with Lazaro Archer and his family, so their protection is paramount. I’m sure Lucan will agree that the rescue tonight seemed too easy, despite the casualties. Something doesn’t sit right about any of this.”

Brock nodded, having had the same feeling when they’d discovered Kellan’s captors were Minions and not the trio of Gen One assassins who’d been witnessed abducting the boy. “The kidnapping was a ruse. Dragos has something more up his sleeve.”

Tegan’s look was grim. “That’s what my gut is telling me, too.”

“I pray you’re both wrong,” Rowan said, his sober gaze drifting over to the sedan where Lazaro Archer still held his dead son. “These past few hours have been bloody enough.”

“We should vacate the building and the street and clear out of here,” Tegan said. “It’s too risky to let either of the Archers stay out in the open any longer.”

“I’ll get started on the evidence cleanup,” Brock offered.

As soon as he turned to walk toward the apartment building, Rowan was right beside him. “Let me help you, please.”

They strode across the construction site, but hadn’t even gotten halfway there when Rowan’s cell phone trilled with an incoming call. He held it out in front of him, as though to ask Tegan’s permission to take the call. The Gen One warrior nodded.

Rowan put the phone to his ear, and Brock watched in a state of mounting alarm as the Enforcement Agent’s face blanched. “There must be some mistake,” he murmured. “The whole Darkhaven … Good Christ.”

Brock motioned to Tegan, feeling ice begin to settle in his gut as Rowan said a few more words of disbelief, then woodenly disconnected the call.

“What’s going on?” Tegan demanded, having jogged over on Brock’s signal. “What the hell just happened?”

“Lazaro Archer’s Darkhaven,” Rowan murmured. “It burned to the ground tonight. There was an apparent gas leak and a massive explosion. There were no survivors.”

No one said a word for a very long while. A light flurry of snow swirled under the wintry starlight, the only